A soil health workshop was hosted by the Association of Texas Soil and Water Conservation Districts (ATSWCD) with support from SHI at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Center on the Texas A&M University Kingsville campus in Kingsville, Texas, March 20-21, 2024. The first day started off with a tour of Mr. John Prukop’s farm, where he discussed how they grow irrigated and non-irrigated watermelon along with his experiences of starting to implement strip-tilling to improve soil and water conservation, fertility, and soil health. Prukop Farms has evolved to 90% strip-till or no-till with the occasional conventional tillage where necessary to deter chemically uncontrollable weeds.
Dennis Brezina, Natural Resources Conservation Service Texas State Soil Health Specialist, gave a demonstration of their rainfall simulator (view below). The rainfall simulator garnered interest from growers wanting to better visualize how rainfall impacts their specific farming practices.
Dr. Alfonso Ortego, Professor and Research Scientist in the Department of Rangeland and Wildlife Sciences at Texas A&M University Kingsville, spoke about the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute, range improvements, and grazing management.
Emily Ball, SHI Soil Health Educator, spoke about SHI’s soil sampling work in Texas and other projects throughout the U.S. Following her presentation, Dr. Yuri Calil, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in Agricultural Economics with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, highlighted SHI’s economic work in the Texas Southern Great Plains (fact sheet and video) in his presentation and emphasized the importance of considering the profitability of your operation, not yield alone, when adopting soil health management systems.
All photos were taken by Misty Miles, SHI Project Manager.
If you want to contact an SHI Soil Health Educator, Technical Specialist, or Farmer Mentor, please visit our Contacts page.